Just hours before the news of his arrest by Bahamas police, Sam Bankman-Fried on Twitter denied his involvement in or knowledge of a secret group chat called “Wirefraud.”in which former FTX and Alameda executives allegedly participated.
In a December 12 response to a report by the Australian Financial Review (AFR), Bankman-Fried took to Twitter to deny his involvement in or knowledge of a so-called “Wirefraud” group chat on the Signal messaging app, which allegedly included members of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle, including FTX co-founder Zixiao “Gary” Wang, FTX engineer Nishad Singh and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison.
According to the AFR report, the chat was used to send secret information about the operations of FTX and Alameda in the run up to their bankruptcy.
Nevertheless, Bankman-Fried said on Twitter that if the group chat was “true”, he was “not a member” and was “pretty sure it’s fake” as he had “never heard of such a group”..
If this is true then I wasn’t a member of that inner circle
(I’m quite sure it’s just false; I have never heard of such a group)
—SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 12, 2022
If this is true, then he was not a member of that inner circle. (I’m pretty sure it’s just fake – I’ve never heard of such a group)
Until quite recently, Bankman-Fried was expected to appear remotely before a US House Committee hearing on December 13 to explain the collapse of the FTX exchange. But on December 12, he was detained by the Bahamian authorities. to face US charges reportedly including wire and securities fraud and money laundering.
The president of the Committee, Maxine Waters, confirmed on December 12 that the panel “will not be able to hear” SBF’s testimony due to the detention.
Bankman-Fried was also required to attend a separate hearing on December 14 with the Senate Banking Committee, but she never confirmed her attendance.; His attorneys reportedly refuse to accept a subpoena compelling testimony from him, according to a Dec. 12 joint statement from Sens. Sherrod Brown and Pat Toomey.
FTX’s director of restructuring and CEO, John Ray, in written testimony released ahead of his appearance at the House Committee hearing, said FTX client assets were “mixed” with Alameda funds..
Ray claimed that Alameda “used client funds to engage in margin trading that exposed client funds to massive losses.” and that the trading firm’s business model required it to deploy these funds in “several […] exchanges that were inherently insecure.”
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